Many-Body Structural Effects in Periodically Driven Quantum Batteries

Abstract

While quantum batteries have been widely studied under static driving, their performance under periodic driving in many-body systems remains far less understood. In this Letter, we uncover structural principles showing that many-body structure fundamentally determines the charging performance of a collective spin-1/2 quantum battery driven by a periodic Ising charger. In particular, interaction range, boundary conditions, system size, and integrability -- capturing graph connectivity, geometry, even-odd effects, and many-body dynamics -- emerge as critical factors for enhancing stored energy and charging power. First, we analyze how connectivity scaling and boundary geometry shape battery performance. We show that long-range interacting chargers exhibit superextensive energy storage, approaching the fundamental upper bound over broad ranges of driving periods and system sizes. In contrast, nearest-neighbor chargers achieve optimal charging only under finely tuned commensurability conditions. Moreover, we find that open boundary conditions (OBC) enhance robustness compared to periodic boundary conditions (PBC). Second, we examine the role of integrability under periodic driving. We demonstrate that nonintegrability enhances energy storage by suppressing conserved quantities and promoting ergodic Floquet dynamics, thereby enabling efficient population of the many-body spectrum. Through systematic structural optimization across multiple parameters, we identify long-range nonintegrability as a central resource for fast, scalable, and robust charging of collective quantum batteries. Our results clarify how structural features of many-body systems, together with periodic driving, can be harnessed to achieve efficient collective charging dynamics.

Figures (22)

• Figure 1: Stored energy $\Delta E$ as a function of the number of kicks $n$ for a noninteracting QB driven by a time-periodic long-range Ising charger, shown for different driving periods with $\tau_0=\tau_1=\tau$ (see legend). Panels (a,b) correspond to the integrable charger, whereas panels (c,d) represent the nonintegrable case. PBC are used in (a,c), and OBC in (b,d). The inset of panel (d) highlights the long-time behavior of the stored energy for $\tau=\pi/8$. The system parameters are chosen as $N=8$, $J=1$, $h_x=0$ (integrable) or $h_x=1$ (nonintegrable), $h_z=1$, and $\omega=1$.
• Figure 2: Stored energy $\Delta E$ as a function of the number of kicks $n$ for a noninteracting QB driven by a time-periodic long-range interacting charger, shown for different system sizes $N$ (see legend). Panels (a,b) correspond to the integrable regime, whereas panels (c,d) represent the nonintegrable regime. PBC are used in panels (a,c), while OBC are used in panels (b,d). The system parameters are chosen as $\tau_0=\tau_1=\pi/2$, $J=1$, $h_x=0$ (integrable) or $h_x=1$ (nonintegrable), $h_z=1$, and $\omega=1$.
• Figure 3: Stored energy $\Delta E$ as a function of the number of kicks $n$ for a noninteracting QB driven by a time-periodic nearest-neighbor Ising charger at different driving periods with $\tau_0=\tau_1=\tau$ (see legend). Panels (a,b) correspond to the integrable regime, whereas panels (c,d) represent the nonintegrable regime. PBC are used in panels (a,c), and OBC in panels (b,d). The system parameters are $N=8$, $J=1$, $h_x=0$ for the integrable case or $h_x=1$ for the nonintegrable case, $h_z=1$, and $\omega=1$.
• Figure 4: Stored energy $\Delta E$ as a function of the number of kicks $n$ for a noninteracting QB driven by a time-periodic nearest-neighbor Ising charger for different system sizes $N$ (see legend). Panels (a,b) correspond to the integrable regime, while panels (c,d) show the nonintegrable regime. PBC are adopted in panels (a,c), and OBC are used in panels (b,d). The parameters are set to $\tau_0=\tau_1=\pi/4$, $J=1$, $h_x=0$ for the integrable case or $h_x=1$ for the nonintegrable case, with $h_z=1$ and $\omega=1$.
• Figure 5: Stored energy and bipartite mutual information of a QB driven by a nonintegrable time-periodic charger with driving periods $\tau_0=\tau_1=\pi/4$. Panels (a,b) correspond to PBC, whereas panels (c,d) correspond to OBC. Results in panels (a,c) are shown for system size $N=8$, and those in panels (b,d) for $N=10$. The remaining parameters are $J=1$ for the interaction strength, $h_x=1$ for the transverse field strength, and $h_z=1$ for the QB field strength.